This week the expected report on Colombia’s hydrocarbon reserves as of December 31, 2022 was released and the negative figures reopened the debate on the need to award new contracts that allow continuing the search for oil and natural gas in order to guarantee self-sufficiency and energy security in the country.
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According to the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH), Colombia has fewer gas reserves due to the drop in technical reviews that make already discovered volumes less viable. The current 2,817 cubic gigafoot would be finished in 7.2 years, this is the lowest useful life in the last 17 years.
In oil the picture is not very different. Although there was a slight increase to reach 2.074 million barrels last year, higher consumption brought self-sufficiency down to 7.5 years.
This means that, if current demand is maintained and new resources are not found that can be extracted from the subsoil, Colombia would be forced to import crude oil around 2030.
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Despite knowing these figures, the Minister of Mines and Energy, Irene Vélez, maintains her position that it is not necessary to award new areas because the priority is to achieve greater efficiency in existing contracts.
However, the call made by the companies, experts and unions of this industry goes in a totally opposite direction. The president of Naturgás, Luz Stella Murgas, assures that Colombia has entered a state of “urgency” that calls for actions to be taken on all fronts and for the establishment of a short and medium-term schedule that will guarantee this fuel to all families. Colombians in the long term.
For this, it is not only necessary, he says, to maintain exploratory activity in existing contracts, but also to evaluate the possibility of assigning new contracts to increase self-sufficiency in natural gas.
Former Minister of Mines and Energy Amylkar Acosta also hopes that the National Government will reconsider its decision because, although it is true that it is inconvenient for the Colombian economy and public finances to depend on coal and oil, it is worse to depend on oil imports.
“That ghost of importing crude oil, which has been haunting us for a long time, is closer today than yesterday,” he adds.
Natural gas not only reaches 36 million Colombians daily, but also to thermal plants so they can generate electricity. These plants are the largest consumers of natural gas in the country and demand 25 percent of national production.
Therefore, the reduction in the country’s self-sufficiency “is quite worrying,” says the executive director of Andeg, Alejandro Castañeda, who adds that what this drop is showing is that Colombia was not able to replace what was consumed in a year And the concern increases when it is taken into account that the consumption of this fuel in the country is expected to increase, in line with the plans to decarbonise the economy.
Like the other experts, Castañeda also believes that the signing of contracts should continue, especially considering that the transition will be leveraged by natural gas. “If we want to link renewable energies, gas and coal thermal will allow the entry of this new capacity; otherwise, there will be no stability in the system to be able to do it”, he expresses.
How to raise the figures?
The ANH report also indicates that the contingent gas resources, which are an estimate of the potential for hydrocarbons that could become reserves in the future, doubled by the end of 2022 and reached 5,800 cubic gigafeet thanks, mainly, to the discoveries that have been reported in the Caribbean Sea.
In order for this potential to be converted into reserves and thus increase the country’s self-sufficiency, lThe president of Naturgás states that it is necessary to determine the requirements of the discoveries that were made in 2022, they can be accelerated in order to have these molecules in a shorter time than expected, since bringing an offshore discovery to the production phase can take between eight and 12 years.
Likewise, projects where there is greater reserve potential could be prioritized, such as those offshore. According to the president of Ecopetrol, Ricardo Roa, in Uchuva 7,000 cubic gigafoot of natural gas have been identified, while in Gorgon there are 2,500 cubic gigafoot and in Orca, 500 cubic gigafoot.
However, the executive director of Andeg assures that “what you have to do is add proven reserves, the rest are resources that may exist and a favorable environment is needed for that to develop and I think that this is not the moment. The messages that are coming from the Government is not to continue doing what should be done.
The National Government has also considered continuing to increase the improved recovery factor, which between 2021 and 2022 rose from 21 to 23 percent, which means that this is the percentage of oil that is actually being extracted from each well.
“This increase tells us that the government’s policy of improving reserves via efficiency in exploitation through recovery is beginning to be effective,” said Minister Irene Vélez.
gas for transition
By reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent and particulate matter by 96 percent, natural gas will play a leading role in Colombia’s transition towards the use of cleaner energy, not only because it is a more environmentally friendly fuel the environment but because thermoelectric plants will continue to be a backup for hydraulic generation and will complement the intermittent solar and wind generation.
But To move forward with the energy transition, it is also necessary to have the participation of the private sector, which calls for a regulatory framework and stable public policies so that investment can come to Colombia and so that companies that already have a presence in the country continue to invest.
“We cannot be changing the experts of the Creg permanently, we need them to define who they are going to be. We cannot lose the independence of the regulator”, asks the president of Promigás, Juan Manuel Rojas.
Likewise, it states that “If we have to wait every year for the reserves report to define if new exploration areas are going to be assigned, this is not how a country is planned. We have to increase the years of gas reserves and we need long-term signals with a stable regulatory framework”.
Along the same lines, Carlos Machado, president of Lewis Energy, assured that “it would be illogical and an error” if all the hydrocarbon resources that Colombia has in the subsoil cannot be produced.
“We must continue to promote private investment in the exploration of hydrocarbons, we must attract it because energy problems appear unexpectedly and none have quick solutions; the solutions are in the long term and with large investments”, she assures.
It also expresses the need to have clear rules of the game and legal certainty so that the sector can make long-term investments in order to ensure the country’s energy self-sufficiency.
And if the Government continues to maintain its position of not handing over new areas, Machado indicates that the exploratory effort should be increased in the existing contracts “because it involves an effort that takes years, patience, human talent and many financial resources.” who bet on risk”.
LINA QUIROGA BLONDE
deiqui@eltiempo.com
